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2 player games

DM Badger

DM Badger

Member
My wife and i play a huge number of board games also.
Here are some games we enjoy.

Cribbage
Mancala
bananagrams
cobra paw
scrabble
upwords
sorcerer city
Genius square [great replayability]
The exit games are great in terms of you open the box and everyone is a player but they are play once only [expendable/disposable] game resources]
labrinthe
Odin's Ravens

We have others if you are still interested but these are our most common plays
 
I‘m not quite sure I understand why you posted this? Care to explain?
 
@Stephan Hornick Probably because we don't have a general discussion forum.

I also wrote a newsletter about this ages ago. It's a great way to trick spouses into eventually trying RPG. j/k
 
Oh right, I had forgotten about that.

Here's a few my wife and Iplay:
  • Catan boardgame
  • Rivals of Catan card gae
  • Power Grid
  • Pademic
  • Blokus
  • Istanbul,
  • Clans of Caldonia
  • March of Ants
  • Hive
  • Anomia
  • Alhambra
  • Rollplayer
  • Boss Monster
  • Munchkin
  • Tigris & Euphrates
  • Empire Builder
  • Ticket to Ride
  • Splendor
  • Charterstone
  • Kwirkle
  • London
 
Anybode here tried "Dialect"? It's labelled RPG, but it is also an interesting world building game. You play characters in an isolated setting (last robots on earth, plush toys in your parent wardrobe, pioneer mission on mars, ...) and with each turn you develop a specific item in the language of this community. You discuss how and why some new word developed, then you play a short scene using that new term (and the ones you created before).
I received it from my girlfriend as a birthday gift and although it says 3 to 5 players, we just played it among the two of us. I think larger groups would work as well.

Eventually your isolated community stops being isolated (they provide backdrops with a predefined evolution of the outside world, that eventually hits you). Somehow we got so attached to our world that we were quite sad at the end.

https://thornygames.com/pages/dialect
 
In the past I played quite a bit of Tunnels and Trolls (a simple but fun RPG for those who dont know it) as a single player plus GM. Of course the game loses most of the social aspects but I dont see why RPGs cannot be played by couples.

Now that I think about it, there seems to be a market for single player (solo) games and group games but almost noone markets RPGs to couples. Does anyone have any insights into why?
 
Subdued Wasp said:
In the past I played quite a bit of Tunnels and Trolls (a simple but fun RPG for those who dont know it) as a single player plus GM. Of course the game loses most of the social aspects but I dont see why RPGs cannot be played by couples.

Now that I think about it, there seems to be a market for single player (solo) games and group games but almost noone markets RPGs to couples. Does anyone have any insights into why?
Click to expand...

I think the only way I can tactfully imply the first answer to "why" that came to mind is to say maybe the type of games marketed to couples are not quite in the TTRPG genre.

A quick search of the web for "games for couples" or "couples games" should probably provide the answer on what games *are* primarily marketed to couples ..
 
I get what you are saying, but that isnt really the question I was posing. I guess the question should be whether there is a market for 2 player (not necessarily couples) rpg. Off the top of my head most games seem to be aimed at 4-6 people or so, with almost all the rest solo. I would imagine for example that something like The Witcher would be an obvious solo player plus single GM game, but the witcher rpg isnt that.

Considering how many people there are publishing on drivethu for example, you would think that someone would be pitching at the small group, say 2 to 3 people market. The typcal parent who wants to GM for one or two kids, two teenage brothers who want a bit of swords and sorcery... I cant be the only teenager who could never get more than one friend to commit at any one time? And with the whole covid situation where so many people were stuck at home with just their families and maybe VTT, there must have been a lot of small groups... no?
 
Subdued Wasp said:
Considering how many people there are publishing on drivethu for example, you would think that someone would be pitching at the small group, say 2 to 3 people market. The typcal parent who wants to GM for one or two kids, two teenage brothers who want a bit of swords and sorcery... I cant be the only teenager who could never get more than one friend to commit at any one time? And with the whole covid situation where so many people were stuck at home with just their families and maybe VTT, there must have been a lot of small groups... no?
Click to expand...

Yes, sorry, I do have a tendency to say rather silly things sometimes.

I believe there is a market for such - there are even some early D&D and AD&D modules that were single-player/single-GM design.
 
IMHO the market you speak of is aimed at PvP style games instead of a single player guided by another. I have found that most solo situations presented in games can be easily modified for 2-3 people to play using the same rules. We did that for Twilight 2k, took turns describing the actions of the encounters instead of the random rolls used to decide what happened.
 
You were right you asked the question as asked, I just formulated it badly :)

Having thought about it for a few days, my suspicion is that its just a niche within a niche and most game designers are struggling enough as it is.

In principle you dont need much in the way of special rules for a duo game, its rather adventure design than game design I think.

I also agree that 2 player naturally lends itself to pvp.
 
@Subdued Wasp I'd approach it from a parallel direction.

Ask yourself how many customers you'd want to be a hero to and your project would need to be a success. Look at your cost of development and operation, and your margins.

For example, the number of GMs running 2 player games today might be 100, 1,000, or 10,000. How would you find them? How could you let them know about your product? That would help inform your marketing costs.

From my experience running the Gamer Lifestyle program, when some GMs ask "What is the market size for X?" they mean "How much money will I make just by passively posting on DTRPG and not have to do any marketing." The answer does not rely on market size. :)

I would instead focus on noodling over how you can pack the most value possible into your offering while still providing you healthy margins, and then creating a marketing plan and sales page. Then build your first product.

Put another way, every GM is a potential customer because we like to collect interesting and valuable things and you never know when a 2 player situation could come up.
 
JohnnFour said:
I would instead focus on noodling over how you can pack the most value possible into your offering while still providing you healthy margins, and then creating a marketing plan and sales page. Then build your first product.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. Im not planning on releasing any content any time soon. Scenarios good enough for a couple of friends is challenge enough for me, it will be a long time before I have anything I want to show the world at large!
 
I just found "Scarlet Heroes" - an old school sword and sorcery game designed for one player and one GM.
 
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